NAGPUR, July 18: Nupur Santra and Mantu Ghosh, both of South-Eastern Railway, annexed the men's and women's titles respectively in the 46th All India Inter-Railway Table Tennis Championship, which concluded here at the YMCA Robertson hall today.Santra got the better of Shivaji Dutta (Eastern Railway) 21-14, 11-21, 21-13, 21-10, while third seed Mantu stunned her teammate and top seed Kasturi Chakraborty 21-13, 21-19, 21-17.
The men's final was a battle of experience and young blood. Santra, who has a number of titles under his belt, won the first game 21-14. Dutta, who had won the SAARC Table Tennis Championship for Juniors held at Dhaka last year, exhibited some excellent shots to take the game 21-11 and level 1-1.
But, Santra kept cool and forced Dutta to commit errors in the third and fourth games. Dutta had no answer for Santra's service variations and his superb ball control.
Santra had earlier sprung a major surprise by outplaying top seed Bhushan Thakur of Central Railway 3-0 (21-19, 18-21,21-17, 21-15) in the quarters.Mantu Ghosh won the women's title with ease. Kasturi struggled a bit in the second game but the match was totally dominated by Mantu.
Earlier in the semifinals, Santra defeated his teammate Amrish Chatterjee 21-18, 21-12, 21-13 and Dutta outwitted Nilesh Vaid (Central Railway) 21-9, 22-20, 21-9.
Mantu brushed aside Mitu Paul (NFR) 21-10, 21-11, 21-10 and Kasturi beat Moumita Dutta (SER) 21-17, 21-13, 21-10 to set up the women's summit clash.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.